Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades

by Brian Staveley

  Laith pulled the bird up above the highest peaks, above the low, scudding clouds—so high, the thin air scraped at Valyn’s lungs, and he thought his fingers might freeze to the rigging loops on ’Ra’s talons. Kettral had no protocol for fighting other Kettral, but Valyn’s Wing had discussed this ahead of time. Yurl would be flying low, scanning the ground just as they had been. Valyn calculated the angles. They were south of the flash and quite a few miles to the west—it was possible that the other Wing had glimpsed a similar reflection of light, but it didn’t seem likely, especially if they were focused on the terrain below.

  Men are like deer, Hendran wrote. They never look up.

  Laith was urging the bird higher and higher still, until they soared through the darkening air thousands of paces higher than the highest mountains. If he was able to bring ’Ra down from above, it seemed possible to destroy Yurl’s entire Wing with one of Gwenna’s arrow-mounted starshatters—Annick had only to bury the thing in the bird’s tailfeathers and let the wick burn out. He glanced over at the sniper and saw that she’d already nocked an arrow to the string of her bow, leaning far out in her harness over the edge of the talon, searching the sky below for her quarry.

  There’s even a chance that we got here first, Valyn realized, hope rising within him. The thing Gwenna saw could have been Ashk’lan itself, some monk returning from the fields with a hoe slung over his shoulder.

  As they drew closer to the flashing light, however, Valyn realized that whatever they were looking at, it wasn’t Ashk’lan. The light seemed to have come from a saddle in the distant ridgeline. There were no buildings, not even small ones. No one would build that high, not even these ’Shael-spawned monks. You’d have to spend all your time hauling water. But then, what was it Gwenna had seen? His pulse quickened as they passed overhead.

  There were troops, he realized, maybe a dozen of them, scurrying over what seemed to be a makeshift camp. Yurl, he thought at first. Only Yurl didn’t command nearly as many men. Did Shaleel send more than one Wing?

  Gwenna was gesturing vigorously, and he waved her off before she felt the need to drive that elbow into his ribs once more.

  “I see them!”

  Now that he had something specific to focus on, he fished the long lens out of his pack and trained it on the group. The figures, antlike to the natural eye, leapt into startling detail and precision, the rising sun on their armor sharp enough to touch. Aedolians, he realized with a fierce smile. Sanlitun must have dispatched two groups when he learned of the plot. The ones who had come to rescue Valyn had been slaughtered on their ship before they arrived, but it looked as though the contingent to protect Kaden had won through. Valyn had no idea what in Ae’s name was going on down there, no idea where Ashk’lan was, where Kaden was, but one thing was clear—he wouldn’t be alone in his fight against Yurl’s Wing. The delegation was sure to know the location of Ashk’lan—it was probably quite close by. Valyn and his Wing could fly ahead, secure Kaden, and wait for the guardsmen to arrive.

  Then he caught sight of the bird—Yurl’s bird. The creature had settled down to roost in a small alpine meadow a quarter mile from the main body of men.

  “That ’Kent-kissing bastard’s here already!” Gwenna shouted into his ear, pointing.

  Valyn nodded grimly.

  Yurl must have spotted the Aedolians from the air, or they spotted him. Either way, he would have thought fast enough to realize the game was up, and come in for an easy landing. After all, the Aedolians slaughtered on the boat to Qarsh all those months ago hadn’t been known exactly who was behind the plot. These were likely no better informed. They probably thought Yurl was flying a lawful mission from the Eyrie, probably thought the son of a whore was there to help. The youth could have fed them any one of a number of plausible lies, could even now be helping to arrange a “rescue,” one that would end, undoubtedly, in a tragic accident and Kaden’s death.

  Except, of course, that Yurl believed Valyn’s Wing was back on the Islands. As Hendran had written: There’s no blade as keen as surprise.

  The saddle stretched between two jagged peaks, offering a passage between them and a momentary respite from the unrelenting steepness of the surrounding terrain. Deep banks of snow piled in the shadows of the most jagged escarpments, but the center of the broad notch was clear. There were even a few patches of stunted grass thrusting up between the rocks. To the east, the ground fell off abruptly—so abruptly, Valyn wondered if it was possible to descend in that direction at all—but westward, the declivity was more gradual, and a quarter mile distant, the land leveled off again for a hundred paces. There, out of the worst of the wind, the grass grew more evenly, and it was there that Yurl had tethered his bird.

  The Aedolians had taken up a rough defensive position in the pass, groups of three marking out the perimeter of an uneven square. A few of the men clustered at the center of the pass hunched over a cook fire, although where they found the wood to burn, Valyn couldn’t say. Others were erecting a handful of low canvas tents, tucking them behind shoulders of rock or up small ravines—anywhere to get out of the wind. It was a messy camp, but the Aedolians couldn’t have been expecting an attack out here in the middle of the wilds, and even if a foe did materialize, the position, sloping away as it did on either side, was nearly impregnable. The men wouldn’t even need weapons; they could just trundle a few of those medium-sized boulders down the escarpment and be done with it.

  Yurl, likewise, had taken minimal precautions. It took Valyn a moment to pick out the Wing leader out from among armed men, but once he spotted him, there was no mistaking that yellow hair whipping in the mountain wind. Even the way he stood was arrogant. Balendin had joined him at the center of the camp. The leach had been forced to leave his dogs behind on Qarsh, but that hawk perched on his shoulder. Not his well, though, Valyn reminded himself. Just a bird.

  The leach and the Wing leader were locked in coversation with a group of Aedolians. Yurl was making broad, expansive gestures with both hands while Balendin stood stock-still at his side. Valyn wondered what kind of lies the bastard was spinning. Anna was down by the bird, and Remmel Star and Hern Emmandrake had taken up positions on opposite sides of the pass. They looked a little more vigilant than their Aedolian counterparts. Emmandrake even had an arrow notched to the string of his bow. The youth wasn’t as good as Annick, but he could hit his targets. None of it mattered. They’re looking into the valleys. Every single one of the ’Shael-spawned sons of whores is looking down.

  Valyn grinned savagely, then looked over at Gwenna.

  “It’s time to settle some scores.”

  * * *

  Laith landed the bird in a flurry of wings and wind, and Valyn rolled up from his dismount to find himself facing a stern Aedolian in nearly full armor. It took him a moment to place the man. He knew the face, but it had aged, of course, hardened.… Micijah Ut, he realized, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Better and better. As a small child, he had always admired the commander of the Dark Guard, and Ut, for his part, had been kind to Valyn in return. Valyn stood up a little straighter, aware that the Aedolian was seeing him as a man now for the first time.

  “Commander Ut,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand.

  Instead of accepting his greeting, the huge Aedolian took a step backward, preserving the distance between them while he drew a massive broadblade from the sheath across his back. If he was shocked to find Valyn here, a continent and a half away from either Annur or the Qirins, he didn’t show it. Nor did he seem pleased.

  “No closer, Malkeenian. Keep your hands in front of you, and tell your people to stand down.”

  Valyn frowned. He’d known that Yurl would see them coming in the final seconds—there wasn’t much avoiding that. He’d even expected the other Wing commander to have sown a few desperate lies. He had not, however, expected those lies to bear fruit so quickly. Laith, who had started to dismount from the bird, squinted warily, then swung back into his ha
rness. The Aedolians who had been setting up the tents and watching the perimeter drifted toward their commander, hands on their weapons. Annick and Talal drifted out to either side to avoid being flanked.

  “Stand down?” Valyn asked, conscious of the chill in his own voice but making no effort to hide it. “No one on my Wing has so much as bared a blade. It’s you holding the naked steel. Hardly a way for an Aedolian to greet the Emperor’s brother.”

  “I serve the Emperor.”

  “Last I checked, you were sworn to serve the entire imperial family.”

  “Only those who remain loyal.”

  Valyn snorted. “So Sami Yurl has been at you already. The Micijah Ut I remember wouldn’t have been duped so easily by a traitor’s lies.”

  “Throw down your blades,” the man growled, “and we will determine who is lying.”

  Before the conversation could continue, Gwenna shouldered forward, pushing past Valyn, her face twisted with anger.

  “I’ve got no idea who you are, Aedolian,” she said, jabbing a finger at him, “but wearing that heavy helmet all day must have stewed your brains. Where’s Sami Yurl and that pet leach of his? We know they’re here—saw them just before we landed. We know they’ve been filling that stone head of yours with perfect idiocy while you let them run around unguarded. Wait a little bit longer, and they’ll have time to jump on their bird and fly off.”

  She looked ready to draw her blades and hack her way straight through the Aedolian, but Ut lowered the point of his broadblade directly at her neck. “Take another step,” he said angrily, “and I will cut you down.”

  Gwenna scowled, but she didn’t back off. One problem with Kettral training, Valyn realized suddenly, was that his soldiers didn’t have the healthy respect for bared steel and superior numbers that one would expect from a green Wing with an average age of seventeen. To the Kettral, everyone else, everyone including Aedolians, were just amateurs. It was an attitude Valyn understood, but it was also an attitude that could get them all killed. In addition to Ut and the two soldiers flanking him, there were a half dozen archers scattered through the rocks, arrows already nocked to their bowstrings. They were all on the same side—given time, he’d be able to make Ut see that—but everyone was exhausted and tense. There was no telling what lies Yurl had spread just before their arrival. It would be all too easy for someone to make a mistake, and any mistake here would turn fatal quickly.

  “Back off, Gwenna,” Valyn growled.

  “But—”

  “Back. Off.”

  She bared her teeth, but obeyed.

  “Your weapons,” Ut said. “All of them, on the ground.”

  Valyn hesitated. A soldier never willingly sacrificed his weapon, but this was an unusual situation. As long as the two sides remained in a standoff, they weren’t finding Kaden or hunting down Yurl. Someone needed to make a gesture of trust, and Valyn didn’t see any compromise in Ut’s hard, dark eyes.

  “Let’s get this charade over with quickly and cleanly,” he said finally, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of his Wing. “Do as the man says.”

  “I don’t like it,” Annick said. She might have been talking about too much salt in the soup.

  “Neither do I,” Valyn said, “but this is Ut’s command. The sooner we do what he says, the sooner we can start doing what we came for—finding and securing Kaden. Besides,” he continued, trying to force some levity into his voice, “we don’t have much choice, do we?”

  “I could kill him,” Annick replied. She hadn’t so much as raised her bow, but the soldiers in the rocks shifted warily. Several went so far as to half draw their bowstrings—a mistake, given she could draw and fire while they were still finding the range. Annick didn’t seem to notice. “One arrow through the eye. Your call.”

  “Your sniper seems to have a little trouble with obedience,” Ut said.

  “Yeah,” Valyn replied, glancing over his shoulder at her. “But she grows on you.”

  “Tell her to drop the bow or she’ll be the one sprouting arrows.”

  Annick looked unimpressed. “Still your call, Commander.”

  “Just put down the ’Kent-kissing bow,” Valyn snapped. “All of you, get rid of your weapons. All we’re doing here is wasting time.”

  The sniper shrugged, then set her bow on the ground. The others followed suit, but Valyn noticed that they kept their belt knives.

  “The flier, too,” Ut ground out. “Get him off the bird, then we’ll talk.”

  “I don’t know,” Laith replied. “You all don’t seem to be getting off to such a great start down there on the ground.”

  “Off the bird, Laith,” Valyn snapped. “Now.”

  He wasn’t angry at his Wing. They were playing by the book, playing it safe, but there was no benefit to a pointless standoff with a dozen Aedolians. At best, they’d end up wasting valuable time. At worst, someone was going to get killed. If Annick killed Ut, there was no telling how the men under him might respond. The last thing they needed was a pitched battle here at the ass-end of the world while Yurl and Balendin and the rest of their ilk looked on grinning from the rocks.

  “There,” he said, after a few of Ut’s men had scuttled in to remove the discarded weapons. “Now that you don’t have to worry about Annick putting a chisel point through your armor, maybe you can listen to me.” It wasn’t the most diplomatic opening, but Ut hadn’t been exactly welcoming.

  “Speak,” the Aedolian said.

  Valyn searched for the words. “Sami Yurl and his Wing have colluded against my life, and Kaden’s as well. Whatever they told you, they’re here to kill him.”

  “That’s what they told me,” Ut replied. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe them, but now you’ve confirmed it.”

  Valyn stared. “They told you?”

  A rich, sardonic laughter filled the evening air as Yurl himself stepped from behind a low boulder.

  “I guess I gave you too much credit, Malkeenian,” the Wing commander chuckled. “I never thought you were all that intelligent, of course, but I didn’t expect you to actually help me.”

  Gwenna growled something deep in her throat. Without taking his eyes from Yurl, Valyn clamped down on her wrist. He had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t about to let her get herself killed over it. He turned his attention to Ut.

  “If he told you he’s here to kill Kaden,” he ground out, “then what is he walking free for?”

  He had to ask the question, although the sick feeling in his gut told him he already knew the answer.

  “Because he’s going to help us,” Ut replied. “We came to kill your brother. I oversaw the destruction of the monastery. Most of my men are there now, cleaning up, hunting down the remaining monks. And tomorrow, at first light, we’re going to find the ‘Emperor’ and remove his head from his shoulders.”

  46

  The ground before the Temple of Light looked more like a muster field than a holy space. The bastard must have added another five hundred soldiers, Adare thought to herself, eyeing the Sons of Flame as they stood at their posts. None challenged her palanquin, none so much as glanced in her direction, and yet the message sent by all that glittering mail, those twelve-foot polearms, was clear: The Church of Intarra felt as though it had enemies inside the city of Annur, and it intended to defend itself.

  Aside from the soldiers, a middling crowd had assembled before the temple, filing in for the noon service. As Adare stepped down, an angry stir passed through the group. Her role in Uinian’s trial had spread as quickly as his “miracle”—the jealous princess who had tried to see an innocent man, a holy man, condemned—and the Aedolians were forced to shoulder a path through the throng. A few of those closest dropped to one knee, knuckling their foreheads, but for many the gesture was slow, almost resentful, and a few rows back, people were mocking her or shouting open defiance.

  There were many ways that her plan could fail, but the thought that she might not even make it to the door had not
occurred to her. I should have taken Ran up on his offer to provide more troops.

  The kenarang had been adamant.

  “I don’t want to see you cut down by an angry mob,” he insisted, “especially now that I know how well you kiss.”

  She had pushed him away, flattered and irritated at the same time.

  “You can’t be part of this.”

  “I’m the regent. You can’t stop me. Besides, against my better judgment, I find myself smitten.”

  “Listen,” she said, “this can’t be about you. First of all, it can’t look like we’re forcing the issue or overwhelming the temple with an Annurian legion. That will just breed more resentment of the Dawn Palace and more support for Uinian. More importantly, though,” she pressed on, putting a finger to the kenarang’s lips to stifle the objection, “this is between Uinian and me. He’s made a personal attack on Malkeenian power, and if my family is going to hold on to the throne, I have to humble him personally, not through some overbearing show of force.”

  The argument had made sense at the time, but as the grumbling mob pressed close around her knot of Aedolians, Adare found herself wishing for just a little more support. Sanlitun had once explained to her that men were most fickle in the grip of emotion, and that mobs magnified emotion. If the crowd were to turn ugly, the dozen Aedolians surrounding her would crumple before they could even draw their steel.

  Just keep walking. Hide the fear. Hide the doubt.

  She managed to keep her head high and her eyes level, but heaved a sigh of relief nonetheless when they passed, finally, beneath the gate.

  * * *

  Thankfully, the imperial family kept a small booth inside the temple, from which the Malkeenians could observe the ceremony without rubbing elbows with the common folk. The wooden walls of the box wouldn’t restrain an angry mob, but they gave her some breathing space, especially after the Aedolians had taken up their posts around the perimeter, and she sat on one of the plush chairs to hide the trembling in her legs. Some of the parishioners looked her way and pointed with angry mutters and scowls. She ignored them, keeping her eyes on the charred stone beneath the lens. The sun had risen almost to its noonday height, and a column of air beneath the lens had begun to shimmer already with that blistering heat.